Real Rebels

The line between disobedience and taboo was plenty visible. Emboldened, marked with signs, lined with barbed wire, fraught with surveillance. Lacey and Damien, rebels and free spirits, spent many of their teen years together dancing on the side of disobedience, goaded by gawking onlookers and always with a bird ready to flipped out. The heat and the allure still was felt on the back of their necks when they thought about life on the other side. Could they maybe touch the other side without anyone knowing? Without the other knowing? Without having to make a commitment to who they were? 

For all the carelessness they flaunted, worry came and went chronically and scratched underneath the skin. Everything went into disguising the discomfort, the greed. They could tell each other secrets, they could see each others’ bodies, but they would never willingly show them the fingers that prodded under their skin.

In their sophomore fall of 1982, Damien made an unlikely friend in Keith. Keith was a jockish stereotype, the kind that would Damien and Lacey would have a sense for. They’d feel the hairs on their knuckles prickling and grind their teeth when they felt people like Keith near. When on the Monday after Halloween weekend, Damien and Keith came walking side-by-side in the hallway, Lacey felt gravity unravel as the laws of physics were disrupted and all the worry lept into her heart and her brain that something had happened. 

Keith turned the corner to get to homeroom. Damien walked towards Lacey, unable to tell if she was pale from the makeup or if something was wrong. “What?” he said. Lacey shook her head and wouldn’t talk to him as they walked to their classrooms. 

She didn’t see him again until they had chemistry second period. “He was at the Double Feature, with a geeky werewolf costume he made himself,” whispered Damien, “which was awesome because I had the cape and the fangs and my hair slicked back and my cape. He’s actually pretty cool.” Lacey said nothing. As he spoke, she wondered if she would see less of him. Until this point, they had the same friends and talked to the same people. It seemed like a betrayal to now go outside of this safety circle they’d made together. Maybe if she was friends with Keith, they could still be together with him wherever he went? She regretted taking her sister trick-or-treating. If she was there in the theater, maybe this would’ve never happened. She could have been Lady Dracula and this unlikely pairing would have stayed unlikely.

Just as they were getting in Damien’s car Keith ran up. “Are you busy later tonight?” he said. The way Damien’s face lit up when he saw Keith’s tall, lanky body run up to him, she could feel her heart contorting like it needed an exorcist. Exorcise Keith. Exorcise Damien of Keith. Lacey was in the car thinking of what witchcraft she needed to pull to keep her boyfriend to herself when he sat down beside her. “So, are you going tonight?” she said. Damien had a faraway look in his face, and was still smiling when he turned to her. “Yeah, I think I might.” Lacey frowned. “I thought you were taking me bowling tonight.” Damien’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.” He opened the door to the car but Keith had already left on his bus. “Fuck,” he said, and he plopped back in his chair. “Well…Can we bowl a different day? I don’t know Keith’s number to cancel.” Lacey huffed and slumped into her seat. Damien rolled his eyes and started backing out.

That night they played one-on-one in the park and though Keith could’ve crushed him, he gave Damien a little leeway. Damien fell back onto the wet grass and just lay there were it was cool and the wind gave him a frosty feeling which made it feel all the more alive and hyperpresent as Keith took a fake little victory on the court, mimicking a cheering crowd. They swung together on rusted swing sets, daring each other to go higher and climbed the eerie looking playground and talked. Damien laid down and above, he could see stars. Keith laid his head too and Damien could smell his hair and his sweat and feel the side of his head against his.

Lacey, meanwhile went to the mall and sipped on Shirley Temples like she wasn’t driving tonight. The bartender of Freddy Fries, an alcohol-free theme restaurant, watched Lacey write in her journal about drinking blood and dot the paper with remnants of expired grenadine sticky at the bottom of her glasses. “Are you okay,” Lux said. Lacey glared at her, hissed and went back to her journal. “You look like your boyfriend just left you,” said Lux, who liked to pretend that she was a real bartender, theraputing her patrons. She wiped down a clean glass as she spoke. “Not a lot of people come to the mall alone, why are you.” 

“Shut up,” said Lacey, “I ate him.” Lux smirked. “Lucky guy,” she said. “Explains why someone so pretty is single tonight.” Lacey slammed her journal closed. “I’m not single, and you’re not my type.” Lux shrugged. “I’m just your bartender tonight, but we could be something more if you really wanted to,” Lux winked. Lacey rolled her eyes and left. She turned back to look at Lux as she left the restaurant, Lux was still smiling to herself as she started to clean up Lacey’s bloody mess. 

How brazen of her. Lacey didn’t have that kind of courage, but maybe when she was younger she tried to. Though the first girl she kissed wouldn’t look her in the eyes after summer camp and the second just used her as a party trick to seduce guys. It was part of why she avoided female friendship. All they cared about was impressing guys and drawing in the lines. Poser pink headbands and preppy gingham skirts. Fashion and makeup, all an attempt for attention and how many times was she left behind because she was different? Because other girls didn’t want to break the sameness with her? Because the other girls didn’t want to even be associated with her? Lacey sat in her journal and started to write a poem called Lux the Undefeated.

Damien started spending more time with Keith. Whenever he told Lacey he was spending time with Keith, they’d have the same fight. “Oh, not again,” Lacey would say. Then Damien would say, “Can I not have other friends?”

“We never spend any time together.”

“We spend every fucking day together.”

“You’re changing into the same people that we used to make fun of.”

“You’re just being a bitch.”

So he stopped telling her when he was going out with Keith. She would call his house and hear him over his answering machine. She would go to the mall and see Damien urging Keith to get his nipples pierced. Then she’d slump over to the bar at Freddy’s Fries and drown her sorrow in fizzy drinks. “You know,” said Lux, “I would treat you better than he would.” Lacey said, “I bet you would.” Lux stopped cleaning the glass. She had a sense about Lacey, from the second that Lacey started eyeing her the day they met. After Lacey stormed off that day, she’d though maybe she was wrong. But she kept coming back and slowly started to play these pathetic little games. Luz would always serve and Lacey would be still as the thing whizzed past her. Or she would tear it out of thin air and rip it to shreds and spit it out with her hands all over the court, but every so often she’d swing the racket and return the thing, beautifully, as she did and as she was. “Why are you with him, anyway?” said Lux. 

Lacey thought back. There was nothing in her heart that beat for Damien, but it did for being alone. Lacey had felt the cold crushing fear of being alone and when she started dating Damien it was easy. There wasn’t much touching or gushing. What it seemed like every girl had gotten from their boyfriend, the joy and the passion, she thought maybe those feelings would come around later, but she would never have to fear being dismissed like this when they were attached at the hip. Or so she’d thought. There she was, all alone again. Wanting more. Wanting everything. She glance over at Lux. Wanting Lux. “I’ve gotta go,” Lacey said, throwing all her shit in her bag, knocking over a cup of straws in the process. “Woah, hold on,” said Lux, jumping to grab the cup before it rolled off the counter. Lacey sped out before she could say goodbye. Her heart was racing. 

Damien was hovering over Keith’s stomach as Keith laid down on the floor and Damien was propped over him with an eyeliner pencil. Keith looked like he was enjoying the sunshine even in the dark of Damien’s bedroom with only the desk light to light his carefree smile and his thick eyelashes. Keith was deep in concentration to make sure that he didn’t stab Keith’s eye out. “I think I prefer this to eye black,” said Keith with the mirror raised past Damien’s head. Damien smirked. “You look much cooler with this. And the other team would be intimidated, I think.” Keith snorted. “Close your eyes,” Damien said under his breath. Keith closed his eyes. Damien grabbed the pallet, all of the colors were barely touched except for black, which Damien had to scrape for. Keith started to dab on black eyeshadow, but he slowed to a stop, studying Damien’s face. his cheekbones, his nose, his eyebrows, acne scars, and the cupid’s bow of Keith’s lips. Keith opened his eyes and they watched each other. 

Damien crouched low to the ground and put his lips to Keith’s. Keith brought his hand behind Damien’s head lightly. They stayed like that for a moment, until they pulled away and Keith got up off the floor. He looked at the door, which he didn’t realize was open. “What,” Damien said, looking at the color leave Keith’s cheeks. Damien turned just as Lacey ran from the doorway, breathing hard. He chased after her and she bolted out of the house. “Lacey! Lacey, wait!” It was winter and the rain was icy and would run under your coat and down your back and you would’ve never felt so miserable in your life than leaving a warm place to run in the rain and get in your car and start driving until you couldn’t hear the boy you left behind. 

And you cry. And tears and snot get sticky on the steering wheel as you try and wipe it all away. You and the windshield wipers, sending it all out of sight. Finally, Lacey stops in the middle of the road. She makes the mistake of looking back. He’s not there. She gets a pang in her chest that wishes he was and for a moment, Lacey thinks about turning back. Demanding back her boyfriend, demanding that she love her as she has learned to do for him. That Keith be shunned into another dimension. But however light her foot gets on the brake, she doesn’t let go. She knows.

She wonders how it feels to be on the other side, like real rebels making their way across the line, past the barbed wire, the signs and surveillance, and kissing each others’ wounds until they feel no pain, only the warmth of joy like sunlight on their faces. 

And maybe it is when she is cracking the most that something escapes her. Clawing fingers reach the steering wheel and put a foot on the gas pedal. Cars honk and lights bleed past and lacey just drives faster in the rain, and her heart gallops in her chest like she’s going to die. Is this what being free really is? Lacey forgets about doing what she’s not supposed to do, about being resistant and the idea of what is ‘supposed’ of her evaporates. She doesn’t blink until she sees her exit and she snaps to focus, worried she might miss it. She rips the steering wheel in one direction and the car screeches into the empty parking lot. She hits the brake and though the machine protests it all finally stops and Lacey has to breath because she thinks she’s having a heart attack. 

There’s a knock on the window. Lux puts her forehead on the glass and sure enough, “Lacey?” she says. Lacey turns to he glass. She puts the car in park and jumps out of the car. “Oh,” said Lux “I was so worried I wasn’t going to see you again.” Her eyes are pinched like she’s about to cry. Lacey no longer feels the ice down her back and she looks to the sky. It’s not raining anymore. She turns back to Lux, who’s just looking at her. Lacey walks up to Lux and puts her hands around her back. Lux holds her as they brings their lips together. The kiss is soft and it makes all the beauty in life feel impossible, enormous. She knows what it is to dance on the other side in spite of fear, out of love and have the stars shout their victory like medals glinting in the sky.